A Very Weasley Christmas
by wazlib88
Summary: Four holiday snapshots of Ron and Hermione in the early days of their marriage. Fluffier than the snow on the ground with ten times the love.


A/N: Hello all, and merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! Here are some short fics I've been working on over the past couple of weeks! :) They're all based on holiday prompts, the first from an anonymous user on tumblr, the second from so-its-now-or-never-isnt-it, the third a mixture from diva-gonzo and ImNotSpeakingToYou (read their stuff, it's lovely!), and the last based on one I liked. It's pure, unadulterated fluff. I hope you enjoy! :)

PS - I'm going to Florida to train for swimming for a week and may not have much internet access, so if you message me and I don't get back to you straight away, that's why! I'll be back New Year's Day!

Disclaimer: JK Rowling made Ron and Hermione and Christmas isn't mine either.

* * *

Ron Weasley was _not_ having a good day.

By all rights, it shouldn't have been quite so miserable as it was turning out to be. There were only four days until Christmas, after all, and it was his six-month wedding anniversary with Hermione. Now, usually Ron had to think for a moment to come up with the number of years he and Hermione had been together, never mind the number of months. But still, it felt significant somehow. Not that he should have been surprised; a lot of seemingly mundane things were more significant when Hermione was involved. It was one of those "love of his life" things he'd learned not to question.

The point was that it was his six-month wedding anniversary, and he hadn't even _seen_ his wife, because some bloody tosser had missed his overnight shift at the Auror office and Ron had been the lucky sod selected to stay for a double.

When he finally got off at nearly eight-thirty in the morning, after nearly seventeen hours at the office, all Ron wanted was a bowl of Hermione's chicken noodle soup (the only meal she could consistently make as well as his mum did), a soak in the bathtub, and a long nap. But first, he wanted to find his wife, complain about his woes, and kiss her until she either forced him out of her office or shagged him on her desk. Preferably the latter.

He really did have plenty to complain about. He hadn't slept in almost twenty-four hours, for starters. What's more, his supervisor had told him at the end of his shift that he could have off until the day after Boxing Day, as though it was some sort of generous gift. Never mind the fact that working back-to-back shifts was literally illegal unless it was a critical situation, and never _mind_ that Ron had worked almost sixty hours in the past week alone. Casework was finally light again, and he deserved a few days off without his boss acting like allowing it was some grand work of charity. Surely Hermione would be properly outraged on his behalf.

However, Hermione was not in her office.

"She hasn't been in at all today," the bright-eyed office assistant for the DMLE informed him when he asked. "Would you like to leave a message?"

He had to stop himself from hurling back an impolite retort, though he couldn't help but to stalk out of the office mumbling to himself. "Leaving a damn message for my own wife…"

But it wasn't his disgruntled mood that encouraged him to walk faster toward the fireplaces in the atrium; rather, it was worry - Hermione was supposed to have been in by seven-thirty on the dot, as was her custom. The fact that she wasn't was almost as earth-shattering as the fact that the Canons were currently boasting a three-game win streak.

"Hermione?" Ron called when he at last stepped out of the fireplace and into the flat they shared. There was no response, so he wandered through down the narrow hallway to the bedroom and the bathroom.

"Hermione?" he called again, panic rising with every step he took. There was no sign of her anywhere - not even a note. The bed was very clearly slept-in, but there was no other indication that Hermione had been there at all.

Struggling to breathe normally, Ron dashed about their flat, searching every corner as though it would make a difference and trying to evaluate his options rationally. He was just deciding between calling every law enforcement agency in the country, muggle and wizard alike, or collapsing on the floor from sheer lack of oxygen, when relief came in the form of Hermione and her mum walking through the front door. Mrs. Granger had her arm wrapped around Hermione's slightly shivering form.

"What happened?" Ron asked immediately, running over to them at full throttle from across the room.

"She had a bit of a scare this morning, I'm afraid," Mrs. Granger informed him kindly, gently guiding Hermione into his waiting arms. "The doctor says it's just a particularly nasty flu, and she made me stop at your…do they call them pharmacies for you? Well, we've got a potion that should have it all cleared up in a day or two."

Hermione mumbled something into Ron's chest.

"What was that?" he asked her, pulling back and rubbing her arms soothingly.

"Call work," she replied weakly, her voice hoarse. "Need my files."

"Oh, do you don't," Ron said firmly. "You're going to bed, Mrs. Weasley."

_Not quite how I wanted to say those words today,_ he thought to himself as he steered his wife down the hallway and into their bedroom, ignoring her insistent groaning that she would be fine to work from home today. Mrs. Granger followed at a distance, watching with a small smile on her face as Ron tucked Hermione into bed, gave her the correct dosage of her potion, and planted a kiss on her forehead. Despite her earlier protests, she was asleep before Ron had shut off the light.

"We talked on the phone last night, and she told me you were working overnight," Mrs. Granger explained once Ron had closed the bedroom door gently behind them. "I came over to have breakfast with her this morning, but she must've fainted in the bathroom. She threw up a bit, too. I'm sorry, I didn't think to leave a note; we thought we'd be back before you."

"That's fine," Ron replied shortly. "Thanks for taking care of her."

Mrs. Granger shrugged. "I did it for the first half of her life, didn't I? And besides, I can't let you have all the fun."

Ron offered her a grin. "I appreciate it, anyway."

"Well, I ought to be going. I left the things for breakfast on the table," Mrs. Granger said, gesturing. "I have a patient coming in at ten o'clock, but please help yourself. Oh, and give us a ring later and let us know how she's doing. I do hope you'll both be able to make it on Christmas Eve."

"I'm sure we will," Ron assured her. "Those potions work wonders."

"Alright, dear. We'll see you soon, then." After a quick kiss on the cheek, Mrs. Granger was gone.

Ron did, in fact, help himself to part of the breakfast Mrs. Granger had brought over, though he left half of it for Hermione. Perhaps she'd be up to eating it by the next morning. Afterward, he took a kip on the sofa in the living room for a couple of hours before fixing the chicken noodle soup he'd been daydreaming about earlier, preparing enough for both himself and Hermione.

She stirred sleepily when he tapped their door open with his foot a few minutes later, a tray of hot soup in his hands. "Feeling any better?" he asked brightly, sitting himself gingerly on the edge of their bed.

"A little. The potions work," Hermione croaked, her eyes still half-shut.

"Can you eat?" Ron asked, offering her the smaller bowl of soup. She nodded and reached for it. They began to eat in comfortable, contented silence. Ron dug into his soup immediately, while Hermione stuck to taking very small bites.

"Thank you," she said quietly after a few minutes, placing her bowl on the bedside table after finishing about half of it. "You must be tired."

Ron shrugged. "I slept a little on the sofa. I reckon I'm doing pretty well compared to you."

She tried to pull a face at him, but seemed to deem it too much effort and reclined in bed instead. "I don't want to kick you out of bed," she murmured regretfully.

"How long are you contagious for?" Ron asked before slurping the last bit of his soup out of the bowl.

"A couple of days or so, according to the muggle doctor," she replied with an uncharacteristically lazy yawn.

"Well, we aren't muggles, so I'll go ahead and chance it tonight," he remarked, patting her leg gently through the duvet. "Get some rest."

"What about you?" she protested, though her eyes slid shut almost immediately.

"I'm going to draw myself a hot bath, soak in it for a good long while, and then I'm going to make sure my lovely, brilliant wife doesn't do something mental like try to apparate to the Ministry between bouts of vomiting," Ron quipped.

"I think I'm done with that part of it," Hermione protested weakly.

"The point stands," Ron replied with an air of finality he wasn't quite used to having. "Go back to sleep, love."

Hermione mumbled her assent, but before Ron could head to the bathroom, she reached out for him. He took her hand and squeezed gently, waiting for her to speak.

"You're an amazing husband," she mumbled, sniffing and squeezing his hand back with a rather surprising amount of strength. "Thank you."

Ron felt his heart melt and his expression soften in a way that would have been downright embarrassing if anyone else had witnessed it. But this was Hermione, and she knew him better than anybody. Another thing that came along with the whole "love of his life" phenomenon.

"You never know," he replied finally. "This is just the six month mark. I've got years left to muck it up."

"You won't," Hermione said matter-of-factly.

Ron leaned down to press a quick kiss to her lips, avoiding germs be damned. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

As Ron grinned down at her peaceful form, he decided that perhaps, the day hadn't been quite so bad after all. Days with Hermione in them never were, whether they were bickering or laughing or neither or both.

But he already knew all of that, and he had the rest of his life to reaffirm it, over and over and over again. For the time being, there were more pressing matters to attend to - namely, which of Hermione's scented bubble baths he would be using today…

"You could have carried it in by magic, you know," Hermione pointed out as Ron dragged the enormous evergreen he'd chosen as their Christmas tree through the back door of their newly purchased house.

"I'm proving a point, _dear_," Ron retorted through gritted teeth. Hermione sighed, drawing a few feet back from the door to wait, her arms crossed as she tapped her foot.

"Ah-ha!" Ron declared a few moments later, waving his arms in triumph after pulling the tree completely through the door with a final heave. "I _can_ do things the muggle way!"

"I never said you couldn't," Hermione insisted. "Now will you _please_ levitate it into the living room? I can't watch this any longer."

"First you have to say it," Ron demanded, raising an eyebrow.

"Say what?"

"You know."

"Fine," Hermione huffed. "You are a strong, independent husband who doesn't need a wand."

"That wasn't…oh, close enough." Ron puffed out his chest as he drew his wand. With a simple flick and swish, the tree was on its way through the kitchen.

"You're ridiculous," Hermione mumbled under her breath as she followed after him.

"Says you," he replied, his voice perfectly chipper.

"Oh, give it a rest." Hermione couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes as they came to a stop in the living room. Ron guided the tree to rest so that it was visible through their large window.

"Ron, it simply _has_ to be the right size for the living room window," he adopted an exaggerated falsetto that was clearly supposed to be an imitation of her voice. "Never mind that the only person who can see this window is blind old Mrs. Pritchet!"

"Mrs. Pritchet isn't blind!" Hermione argued. "And you look like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer!"

Ron was all but ready to retort, his mouth already beginning to form the words, but his expression slid into confusion at her final jab. "What in Merlin's name is that?"

"It's a muggle thing. And of course, you know _all_ about those," Hermione teased, her expression softening as she strode toward him and tapped his nose, which was still frostbitten from the chilly wind outside.

Ron snorted, but he brought his hands up to her waist and drew her in to an embrace.

"Don't move," he murmured into her hair. "You're so warm."

"That's because I didn't spend the better part of an hour dragging an eight-foot tall tree halfway down the street to 'prove a point,'" Hermione laughed.

"Yes, well, _your _wife didn't make fun of you for not knowing muggle Christmas carols," Ron protested.

"_I _don't have a wife," Hermione pointed out, drawing her own wand from her pocket and summoning their small box of decorations from the closet in the hallway. Leaving one arm around Hermione, Ron flicked his wand again, and the various lights and ornaments arranged themselves rather haphazardly on the tree.

"Magic," he declared with a satisfied nod.

"It is a bit easier, isn't it?" Hermione admitted before muttering a charm to straighten out the tinsel. "But let's at least put the angel up top ourselves."

"I figured you'd say that," Ron flicked his wand once more, then let go of Hermione to catch the golden angel with his other hand. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Hermione smiled and took the angel from him, but her brow furrowed when she turned toward the tree. After a moment's consideration, she turned back to Ron. "Well, stay still," she instructed as she moved to stand behind him. "I can't reach the top of the tree."

"Hermione, what are you - oof!"

Before either of them had considered just how ridiculous they would look to the partially-blind Mrs. Pritchet, Hermione had clambered onto Ron's back, giving him just enough time to grip her thighs and keep her from falling as she reached for the top of the tree. With her husband's help, she was just tall enough to put the angel where it belonged. With a satisfied sigh, she wrapped her arms around Ron's neck and kissed the top of his head. "Perfect."

"Would you like to come down now, or would you prefer a full-blown piggyback ride?" Ron grunted.

"You can put me down," she giggled, hurrying to right herself as Ron dropped his arms unceremoniously.

"So there's our first real tree," Ron remarked, yawning and wrapping an arm around Hermione's shoulders. "Does this make us adults, then?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't the war, or the full-time jobs, or even the year and a half of marriage that did it," Hermione quipped, looking up at him with a certain twinkle in her eye. She placed one hand on his cheek to guide him down toward her. "Come here."

Ron was still smiling when he pressed his lips to hers. Before he completely lost himself in the warmth and love that was simply Hermione, his last coherent thought was that _this_ was absolutely, fantastically, one-hundred and ten percent, the perfect Christmas Eve. _And they hadn't even needed the mistletoe._

"Ron."

"Mmamblgorf."

"Ron, it's snowing."

With a reluctant groan, Ron groped around for whatever was nudging him so insistently in the side. Eventually, a small hand was clasped in his and everything fell into place.

"Thought we were having a lie-in," he mumbled, refusing to open his eyes as he tugged lightly at his wife's fingers.

"We did. It's half past eleven."

"Let's make it an even noon, eh?"

"But Ron, it's snowing!"

He at last pried one of his eyes open, and as soon as he turned to glance at her glowing face and her twinkling eyes, it was all over.

"Let's go," he murmured, a slow grin spreading across his face as she bounced toward their wardrobe. A few moments later, Ron dragged himself out of bed as well, rummaging through his old Weasley jumpers to find the warmest one. Hermione, meanwhile, had inflated to nearly twice her normal size courtesy of the many layers she'd piled on to protect herself from the cold.

Because, as she'd informed him the previous year, "warming charms ruin the fun."

Hermione's love for snow was one of those fun surprises Ron had learned about only after they'd gotten married. He wasn't sure where it had come from, actually; he remembered her cursing the snow during the year they'd been on the run. But whatever the reason for her change of heart, Ron didn't dare question anything that put such a lovely smile on his wife's face.

"Are we allowed to have a spot of breakfast first?" Ron asked, trailing slightly behind Hermione as she nearly flew down the stairs and into the kitchen of their newly-purchased house.

Hermione bit her lip as she searched through the cupboard. "Did you happen to pick up any groceries this week?"

Ron winced. "No."

"Well, neither did I. I suppose that's what we get for working full-time. Plenty of income, and all we've got in here are some possibly inedible cauldron cakes courtesy of Hagrid," Hermione informed him before shutting the cupboard briskly. "Looks like we're going shopping this morning."

"Afternoon," Ron corrected her. "We've still got the snow, yeah?"

Hermione's disappointed expression was replaced by a brilliant grin of anticipation. "I'll get our coats!" she declared, whipping her wand out of her back pocket and muttering the incantation. Ron turned toward the door that led toward the entryway and was greeted by a large bundle of winter wear to the face.

"Sorry!" Hermione fretted, rushing over and taking her coat from his arms. "Here, I think this is your glove."

"Thanks," Ron grunted, pulling a woolen hat over his ears. They tended to become a dreadful shade of red if he didn't cover them during the winter.

"Where's your scarf?" Hermione asked, frowning as she adjusted her own about her neck. "You'll want it if it's cold enough to snow."

"Don't have one."

"Yes you do, I'm sure you do!" Hermione insisted, forgoing her wand this time and instead bustling straight toward the closet in the entryway. "Don't you still have the Gryffindor one from school?"

"Hermione, as much as I'll bleed scarlet and gold for the rest of my life, and as sure as I am that every one of our children will be sorted into Gryffindor, that particular bit of my wardrobe was retired around the time I stopped playing for the house Quidditch team," Ron quipped as he followed her.

Hermione sighed and gave him what he'd come to know as her "I love you, Ron, but I don't know what to do with you sometimes" look.

"It's fine, we can fix it," Ron assured her. "Here, we'll just-"

He reached out and grabbed the end of her scarf, unraveling it from around her neck until there was enough loose to begin wrapping it around his own. It was working perfectly well until Hermione jerked away.

"Ron, what are you doing? We can't _share_!" she screeched, more scandalized than the situation really called for.

"Why not? That thing is huge! When you use it all yourself, your neck looks thicker than Harry's uncle's!" Ron pointed out.

"It does not!" Hermione retorted before pausing and looking down at her now half-wrapped scarf. "Does it?"

"Well, no," Ron admitted, rubbing a placating hand up and down what must have been her upper arm beneath all the layers, "but it _is_ a bit big."

Hermione opened her mouth as though to argue, but seemed to think better of it and grabbed one of Ron's hands instead. "Let's just go, shall we?"

Ron nodded in agreement, then bent down to wrap his arms around Hermione's waist and lifted her over his shoulder. "Off we go!" he announced, pushing open the front door, jogging down the steps, and depositing her in a small pile of snow in their front yard.

"Oof!" she grunted. But rather than complain, Hermione immediately dug her hands into the freshly fallen snow beside her, forming snowball after snowball and chucking them toward Ron. None of them traveled very far, nor were they particularly well-aimed, but the whole thing was so adorable that Ron couldn't help but get in the way of a couple. That was, of course, until he'd finished forming his own arsenal to retaliate in kind.

They sat there, a few feet apart in the middle of the yard, throwing snow-balls at each other and giggling madly, for the better part of a half hour until Ron decided he'd had enough. Heaping as much snow as he could into his arms, he crawled over to Hermione and unloaded it in her lap, laughing even harder when she shrieked and attempted to tackle him in revenge. She looked like a giant marshmallow, waving her hands about wildly and mumbling about her wand.

So, instead of forcing her to suffer any longer, Ron crawled just a little further until he was hovering above her and leaned in to kiss her. She melted immediately into him, creating a strange juxtaposition between the warmth of their mouths moving in sync and the chill of the snow in their hair, on their cheeks, and across the back of Ron's bare neck. Somehow, the former far outweighed the latter. Not that it was at all surprising - nearly seven years together, and he still couldn't get enough of her.

And as it always seemed to be, Ron thought as he smiled into their kiss, Hermione was right yet again. Playing in the snow was pretty incredible, after all.

"Hold still, Daddy!" Hermione cooed as she attached yet another adhesive bow to Ron's forehead, careful to avoid the mess of paper and ribbon lying atop his hair, while their fifteen-month-old daughter giggled on her lap.

"Daddy!" Rose squealed in agreement, swatting at his wrapping paper covered leg with a tiny fist.

"What does Daddy look like, Rosie? Does he look like a present?" Hermione encouraged. Rose had started to say words like "Mummy" and "Daddy" just before her first birthday, and ever since they'd been trying to get her to say as many as possible. Ron was determined she would be the cleverest in her year when she got to Hogwarts, just like her mummy. While Hermione might have scolded him for saying so, she still insisted they read Rose no less than three bedtime stories every evening.

"Yeah, Rosie, what do I look like?" Ron asked, pulling a silly face for his daughter's sake. His heart felt fuller, somehow, when she giggled even louder.

"Blue!" she exclaimed, batting at the ribbon Hermione had stuck on his right forearm.

"That's right, Rosie, the ribbon is blue!" Hermione gushed, planting a kiss on the top of Rose's head.

"Blue!" Rose repeated, this time pointing at the orange ribbon on Ron's other arm.

"Well, it's a start," Ron chuckled. "That one's orange, Rosie."

"Or-jon," Rosie replied sincerely.

"Close enough," Hermione said just as the doorbell rang. "Come in!"

"Sorry, didn't want to floo in case - oh, Merlin." Harry stopped, wide-eyed, in the entry to the living room, clearly suppressing a laugh. "Interesting life choices you're making over there, mate. The hat really brings it all together."

"Oi, Rosie loves it!" Ron defended, though his indignant response was slightly marred by the fact that he had to blow a bright pink ribbon out of his face in order to see Harry properly.

"She really does," Hermione agreed, standing up and taking the still-laughing Rose with her. "Are you sure you and Ginny don't mind looking after her tonight, Harry?"

He shrugged. "The two of you can take James and Al on New Year's for us, yeah?"

"I suppose," Ron grumbled half-heartedly.

"It's only fair," Hermione reminded him, leaning down until she was at eye-level. "Say good night to Daddy, Rosie."

"Na-nigh, Daddy!" Rose twisted around in Hermione's embrace so that she could wrap one of her small arms partially around his head.

"Good night, Rosie-posie-ding-dong," Ron replied, kissing his daughter on the cheek and tickling her face with the bows. "I love you."

Rose gurgled in response, as was her custom, which was good enough for Ron.

"Be good for Uncle Harry, love," Hermione reminded her daughter. "We'll see you in the morning, okay?"

"Seepy-seep, Mummy," Rose responded as her mother handed her over to Harry.

"Does she mean sleep?" he asked.

"I imagine so, which'll be easier for you," Hermione smiled. "Merry Christmas, Harry, and thanks again."

"Merry Christmas," Harry responded in kind. "Oh, and have fun opening your present, Hermione!"

"She will!" Ron called to Harry's retreating back, clearly shaking with laughter, while Hermione sputtered indignantly.

"You two, I swear," she muttered as she took her spot next to Ron on the sofa once again.

"You love us," Ron dismissed. "'Specially me," he added, raising an eyebrow and giving her his best attempt at a come-hither look.

Hermione gave him an appraising look and snorted.

"What?" Ron asked as Hermione completely dissolved into peals of laughter.

"You look completely ridiculous," she managed to say.

"This was _not_ my idea," he reminded her crossly. "I told you, you remember - 'I don't understand how me dressing up as a present benefits anyone,' but you insisted, didn't you?"

"Oh, my poor husband," Hermione teased, still grinning widely as she tenderly removed the bow that was closest to his mouth. "It was worth it, wasn't it?"

"To see Rosie smile like that? Of course," Ron said. "But she still won't remember it, y'know."

"But I will," Hermione reminded him, leaning in to press a warm kiss to his lips. "You know this is why I married you."

"Because you knew I'd be willing to make a fool out of myself?" he teased, but Hermione shook her head and rested a hand on his cheek.

"Because you love fiercely, and with all of your heart," she said sincerely.

"I love _you_ with all of my heart," he replied, leaning in to her touch. "And Rosie, too."

"And we love you back with all of ours," Hermione finished. "That's the only gift we ever really needed, isn't it?"

"Dunno. The toy broomstick seemed to be a hit," Ron pointed out. "And I didn't see you complaining about the new bookshelf, either…"

"Oh, hush. I try to be sweet and what do I get from you?" Hermione scolded.

"A reality check," Ron quipped. "I love you, Hermione, but the clichés? Not what I signed up for."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I don't know what to do with you sometimes."

"And you certainly come up with some interesting ideas on the fly, don't you?" Ron gestured toward the sparkly silver wrapping paper secured around his mid-section with a gold ribbon.

Hermione laughed as she tugged at the gold ribbon to bring him closer. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Weasley."

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Weasley," he murmured before closing the gap between them once again. Clichéd though it might be, Ron knew his daughter's laughter and his wife's kisses were something he would cherish long after he'd lost the new Chudley Cannons jumper he'd unwrapped earlier that day. And the best part was that it didn't have to be Christmas - he was surrounded by love every single day, and that was more than he ever could have asked for.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. :) Happy holidays!


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